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September 25, 2013

How to Fix Photo Quality on Blogger

Yesterday, as I was preparing my newest giveaway, I noticed my images that I had uploaded were looking grainy, splotchy, and had more contrast. It dawned on me that I had the same issues for the last couple of posts I published too. I opened my pictures on my computer and compared them to the ones on my blog and there was a noticeable difference. After a lot of frustration, I figured out why.

What happened
When you upload your photos to your blog (on Blogger), they're automatically saved into a Picasa web album. For some reason, my photos that were being uploaded were automatically being enhanced. I hadn't selected this option at any time nor had I ever accessed my Picasa album before.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about. These are both the same image. The one on the left is the one I wanted on my blog. The one on the right was how it uploaded to my blog. It was automatically "enhanced" by Picasa.

The enhanced image has a splotchy background and the color of the lipstick changed. Also, more contrast was added.

This was an extremely frustrating issue because I had no idea what was happening to my photos. The pretty pictures on my computer were not the ones showing up on my blog posts. After doing some reading, I decided to go to my Picasa album to see if something could be done there. That's where I found my answer. I looked at each of my pictures and noticed that a little box showed up on them that said 'Enhanced'.

This is a picture that has been enhanced - you can see the box in the top right corner indicating that it has been enhanced.

When you mouse-over that box, it gives you the option to revert to the original. I found that the pictures from my last few blog posts had been enhanced, so I reverted each one.

This is the same picture after I reverted it back to the original.

I thought there had to be a setting somewhere to ensure my photos wouldn't be altered automatically. I found it in Google+ settings.

How to fix it

Make sure you're logged into your Google account.

Go to your Google+ home screen.

Mouse over 'Home' and a menu should show up. Scroll down and click 'Settings'

You should get to a page of options. Scroll down to the 'Photos' section. There will be an option for 'Auto Enhance'. Uncheck it.

Your settings should save automatically.

This is what you should be looking at. The arrow points to the option that should be unchecked.
For some reason mine was checked without me ever accessing these options before. It appears that the setting in Google+ allows for Picasa to
automatically add some enhancements. Not cool! I put a lot of hard work
into getting my photos just the way I like them, so I certainly don't want further edits without my consent.

I hope this helps if you're having the same problem! Also, please feel free to share this post on social media as it seems like many people are still in the dark about this issue (a big thanks to those who have shared!).